


The space between us (I'll leave it open for you)

by parkjinyeong



Series: Bookmarks in Our Story [2]
Category: NU'EST, Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cuddling, Drabbles, Fluff, M/M, OT5 Friendship, and your friends getting tired of your emotional instability, the result of missing ot5, this may not may not be more than one shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 17:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11673531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkjinyeong/pseuds/parkjinyeong
Summary: Minhyun is winded at how thoroughly Jonghyun has left a space in everything in his life waiting for him to fill it again.





	The space between us (I'll leave it open for you)

**Author's Note:**

> And so I'm back when I didn't really expect to be. Blame the emotions of OT5's separation & Jonghyun censoring himself from saying Minhyun's name  
> It's not necessary to read [the first work in this series](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10984854) but it'll probably make more sense if you do. I also wrote in Minhyun's perspective instead of Jonghyun this time round so hopefully the characterization is okay.  
> Inspired from Seonho saying how Minhyun visited nu'est dorms and Jonghyun mentioning how Minhyun congratulated him on his fixed casting.

Minhyun lingers at the door, key in hand but inexplicably wondering if he should ring the doorbell instead. Why is he nervous to enter a place that he’s lived in for eight years, a place he’s even more familiar with than his house in Busan? He fears the changes, fears that the members have smoothed over the hole he’s left and he won’t be able to find traces of himself in the dorm he wants to come home to.

Thinking better of himself, he inserts the key and fumbles a few times before the door is flung open with the dramatics of a dry fire, revealing an overly enthusiastic Dongho. Before making it over the initial shock, he’s suffocating in his friend’s familiar arms, the doubts ebbing away as he hugs back just as fiercely.

“Welcome back, Minhyun-ah.”

“Dongho has been looking through the keyhole for the last half hour. I told him to wait for you to open the door yourself but he’s still as frustratingly impatient as always.” Minki clips as Minhyun turns to smile at the boy leaning against the wall nonchalantly. The next second Minki is wedging himself into the hug and Minhyun knows that he’s just as excited as the other to see him.

Minhyun sees Aron hovering behind the other two and manages to extend one of his free hands to pull him in as well.

“Hyung, did you wash my sweater?” he asks cheekily.

“You punk, that’s the first thing you say to your precious hyung? For your information I did wash it but it shrunk two sizes and only fits Jonghyun and Minki now”.

Minhyun pouts but can’t bring himself to feel even a sliver upset about the fate of his knit.

The others let go and step back to give the last member his own chance to welcome Minhyun home. Even though Minhyun’s eyes had gravitated to Jonghyun as soon as he walked through the door, now Jonghyun is staring at him with the force of all the stars in his eyes and Minhyun finds himself faltering in his steps. It’s overwhelming to have the person he could only indulge in fleeting dreams suddenly be standing right in front of him. And the dorm may be home but Minhyun would be okay being lost at sea as long as he had Jonghyun.

“Hi” he utters softly, losing himself in the way Jonghyun’s eyes are blinking up at him.

“Hi” Jonghyun says back, the single syllable unravelling the knots in his heart and leaving it precariously bare for Jonghyun to take.

“Why are they so awkward” he faintly registers Minki’s words in the distance.

Minhyun opens his mouth again, but finds that he’s hesitating to close the distance both metaphorically and physically. How do two people react when they’re so overwhelmed with words that nothing comes out at all?

Seeming to be done with the charged silence, Minki comes forward and steers Minhyun towards their rooms.

“Minhyun-ah, do criticize Dongho about the state of his room. He even made an effort to clean it before you came.”

“It still looks like a wild tiger tore through it,” Minhyun muses.

“That’s a poetic way of putting it,” Minki mutters, shrieking when Dongho shoves him lightly in retaliation.  
Minhyun laughs good-naturedly. Dongho and Minki bicker more than all the kids in Wanna One put together.

“Minki said he would make kimchi jjigae but Jonghyun knew it would be a disaster and ordered short ribs and fried chicken.”  
“It wasn’t that bad,” Minki pouts.

“You’re the one who tried it and proceeded to “accidentally” spill the entire contents into the sink” Aron retorts, and Minhyun wonders once again whether the hyung is really two years older.

“And then cheered the loudest when the delivery came” Dongho supplies helpfully, just because.

As they’re walking back to the living room, Jonghyun lingers against the doorframe and lets the rest pass through. Minhyun, being the last one to exit looks at him questioningly, though it probably comes out differently because Jonghyun seems to make up his mind about something and timidly steps forward to slip his hands inside Minhyun’s larger ones.

Minhyun lets out a breath that he wasn’t aware that he was holding. The hold is light, simple, but it’s the only force that could squeeze the niggling phantom doubts out of his thoughts.

Even though he’d never acknowledge it openly, there was a small part of him that was worried that Jonghyun had a change of heart. That he’s loved only Jonghyun for the past eight years and the rest of his life but Jonghyun would decide that waiting a year and a half is a waste of time. But Jonghyun, shy, complacent Jonghyun who always internalized his feelings, reached out to him first. From the way Jonghyun looks up at him, asking for permission that has always been his, Minhyun recognizes the same raw longing reflected in his eyes. He presses a finger in between Jonghyun’s eyebrows, smoothing away the lines of worry before replacing the digit with a light kiss, relishing in the way Jonghyun’s cheeks pink immediately, though he turns away and marches them towards the others in a futile attempt to hide it.

Minhyun almost skips after him in all his 6 foot glory, crooning “Jonghyunie, did you get short ribs just for me?” Now that the initial doubts are gone, he doesn’t hesitate to plaster himself to Jonghyun’s back as the smaller boy lays out the plates for dinner.

Once settled in around the table, Minhyun in his customary spot whenever he ate with the members, they pelt him with questions about Wanna One. He talks about how Jisung nags more than he does (they shudder at the thought), about how Daehwi is pretty good at cleaning (which he’s thankful for because while he can take care of 4 boys, 10 would suck his energy dry), and how all of them are so earnest that the giddiness of debut catches onto him too.

Satisfied that Minhyun seems to be doing well, the members begin an animated summary of all the unbelievable things that have been happening, complete with Minki standing on his chair and Aron mimicking how Jonghyun cried. Minhyun smiles happily, the way they stumble over each other to recount their reactions to being casted on shows, getting CF calls, successful talks with their company, writing songs.... It’s as if he’s hearing it all for the first time, and hasn’t been monitoring charts, vlives and Naver between schedules, eyes peeled on the manager’s phone while the others catch a moment of sleep.  
He’s so content with laughing that he doesn’t realize he’s barely touched his favourite ribs until Jonghyun is holding a piece up to his mouth, bones already removed. Minhyun opens his mouth obediently and beams at Jonghyun when he puts it in.

“You were being too loud,” Jonghyun mutters.

Minki groans half-heartedly, though all of them are looking at the interaction with fond smiles on their faces. They all know that even though Jonghyun has been brighter and happier, a shadow of longing still lingers whenever Minhyun’s name is mentioned. That shadow had morphed into an ill-concealed affection as soon as Minhyun walked through the door.

Once dinner is done, Aron is assigned to dish duty while Minki goes to put on his face mask (“if I’m late I’ll kill a bunch of skin cells, then I’ll age 10 years and have to quit being a celebrity”). Minhyun relocates himself and Dongho to the sofa for a heart to heart and Jonghyun knowingly excuses himself from the room.  
When Minhyun comes into his old room half an hour later, Jonghyun is on his stomach mindlessly playing on his phone. There’s plenty of room on the bed but Minhyun flops on top of Jonghyun, chuckling at the predictable groans of protest.  
Minhyun props himself up so Jonghyun can turn himself over to face him.

“I tried not to change your room too much when I moved in, so that you can come back and still feel like it’s home.”

“It’s cleaner than yours was when you lived with Minki” Minhyun jokes weakly, winded at how thoroughly Jonghyun has left a space in everything in his life waiting for Minhyun to fill it again.

There’s a million unspoken words between them, words that permeate every day joys and sorrows, wishing only that the other was there to share them. But between them there has never been a need to exchange words for understanding as Minhyun props himself on his elbows to look down at the only face he’s ever loved, mapping every soft line to fortify himself against the indefinite separation ahead.

Minhyun doesn’t notice that Jonghyun’s eyes never leave his, and when they meet again Jonghyun surges forward and connects their lips. Minhyun is momentarily stunned before he reciprocates, in awe at the urgency in which Jonghyun is pressing against him. It reminds him of the first time Jonghyun kissed him back in the practice room, making the leap of faith over a chasm of confusion that Minhyun had been too scared to approach. Jonghyun had always been the better one at navigating them through chaos, he just doesn’t have the confidence to recognize it himself.

Minhyun breaks away before he gets too carried away with the boy trapped underneath him. With heaving chests and beating hearts pressed against each other, Minhyun suddenly remembers that he came with the thoughts of leaving something behind.

“I have something for you, give me your phone”

Jonghyun tilts his head, curiosity swimming in his eyes. Minhyun slides a thumb over the home button and is pleased to watch the phone unlock, despite Jonghyun complaining that it was an invasion of privacy when Minhyun had set 4 of his fingers on the touch ID.

“What’re you doing?” Jonghyun tries to peer over Minhyun’s shoulder but they’re too broad for him to see anything. He resigns to laying his head on Minhyun’s furnace of a back until he turns around and hands the phone back.

“I loaded a playlist I recorded. It’s our songs, the ones that I’ll only sing to you”

“Galaxy, Beautiful, Marry me, you’re such a sap,” Jonghyun grosses, keeping to himself the fact that he streams old v apps every night to hear Minhyun’s voice before bed.

Minhyun just beams happily when he hears the emotional catch in Jonghyun’s voice.

“Congratulations on your casting. You’ve probably heard that a million times but I still wanted to tell you myself. Have you been living well?” Minhyun prods, he loves it the most when Jonghyun reveals his innermost thoughts to him.

“It’s hard not to worry about when the bubble will burst and we’ll go back to where we started, but that doubt feels smaller and smaller day by day. We keep appearing in the news, getting photoshoots and love calls, and a bunch of producers want to work with us from our comeback. Even though it’s hard to believe it seems like the industry seems to believe that Nu’est is here to stay.”

“If it’s you, then you can do it, Jonghyun-ah. Didn’t I always tell you? As long as we keep showing your best, someone is bound to notice us. This is Nu’est’s reality now. You’ll keep moving Nu’est to the top and when I come back we’ll protect this precious dream together.”  
Jonghyun smiles and Minhyun decides that no photo will ever capture the way Jonghyun’s eyes sparkle and crinkle, how his lips stretch and how his entire face blooms brilliantly. Minhyun has the world to thank, for finally noticing how precious the man in front of him is. He doesn’t know who left there is to thank though, for the fact that only he’ll ever see Jonghyun from this distance, kiss the cute mole on his eyelid, and nuzzle against his jawline.

“Let’s head back out before the others give me grief for hogging all of your attention. They’ve all missed you like crazy.”

“You the most of them all?”

“That would be a bit selfish for me to claim, wouldn’t it Minhyunie?”

“Ever the hard to get, Jonghyun-ah”

The five of them have talked about everything, from how manager hyung has been wishing daily that Minhyun was around to “control the rest of you”, to their latest hide and seek hiding spots (Dongho broke the coat rack, but the manager hasn’t noticed that it’s missing a few arms yet). Other than a few knowing looks, the members don’t tease them when Minhyun pulls Jonghyun into his lap and wraps firm arms around his middle. Jonghyun’s ears have been red the entire hour and Minhyun nips at them endearingly, getting a pinch on his thigh in retaliation every time. Jonghyun is so completely pliant against him that he cheekily wonders whose enjoying this more.

Minhyun has been ignoring the buzzing of his phone in his back pocket for the last half hour but pities the manager tasked with dragging him away from the dorm. When he rises to bid them all of goodbye, their reluctance to let him go weighs heavily in the room. Jonghyun is last to send him on his way, and Minhyun can already see how he’s trying to close himself off, keeping the words he wants to say from boiling over.

“Do you want me to walk you downstairs?”

As much as he wants the moments alone with Jonghyun, he knows that it’ll be even harder to watch the man get smaller and smaller in the review mirror, an image that would surely be imprinted in his mind for weeks to come.

So instead of replying, he pulls Jonghyun by the wrist and wraps both arms around his waist.

“If its gets really hard, just say my name. If you say it, no matter what I’ll find my way to you”

“Take care of yourself”

“I love you” Minhyun whispers.

“Minhyun-ah…” Jonghyun breathes.

And while between them they’ve never uttered empty words, promises in the past were made out of desperation, a bare thread to cling on to. Now, even with the reluctance of separation, Minhyun can turn his back knowing that the distance between them is but a bridge to a future when they are together again.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me at [twobugis](www.twitter.com/twobugis)  
> See you next time I need a creative outlet for OT5 feels


End file.
